


I Wonder If I Ever Cross Your Mind

by Duck_Life



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: F/M, Fights, POV Second Person, Phone Calls & Telephones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 07:05:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5958219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're never quite going to make it work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wonder If I Ever Cross Your Mind

I. Now

It starts with the phone ringing.

Shrill, it rips you from sleep, and you end up needing to feel around on the crappy motel’s crappy bedside table before you reach your phone. “Hello?”

“Anna?” After he says your name, there’s an ugly, uncomfortable silence and you wish you could work up the nerve to just hang up the phone. “Anna, you there? It’s— it’s me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, chère. Haven’t said it enough.”

Okay. Deep breath. “Remy, how did you get this number?”

“I, ah— it was Hank. He had it. Said you called him to… check. On me.” More silence. “Listen—”

“Well, obviously y’all’re fine. Question answered. Goodbye.”

“Ro—” But she’s already hanging up.

II. Then

You find her tired, irritated, sitting handcuffed in a moldy old chair at the police station and talking in her tired, irritated manner to the officer standing in front of her. “…and that’s Grey with an ‘e’?” he’s asking as you approach.

“Yes,” says Rogue, eyeing him. A lank lock of white hair flops in front of her eyes. “ _Jean Grey._ G-r-e-y.” Her eyes land on you, and okay, sure, it stings a little that she looks more annoyed than relieved. “Looks like my ride’s here.”

“Your ‘ride’ is gonna have to pay bail, Ms. Grey,” the officer says, glaring at you.

“Not a problem, mon ami.” And you hand him a wad of cash from the inside pocket of your coat.

To be honest, it’s worth spending the money just to see Rogue’s eyebrows shoot up into her bangs.

“Ah called _Logan_ ,” she informs you when you’re making your way out to the car after she’s been let go.

“He was busy.”

“And what’s with the deep pockets, Cajun?” she asks. “What is it that you _do_?”

“Mostly,” you tell her, opening the passenger side door for her, “bail people out of prison.”

Neither of you talk the whole drive back to Xavier’s. It’s not until you’re parked, stewing in your shared silence and both refusing to get out, that she speaks again. “You ain’t even gonna ask what I did?”

After a long moment, you cut off the ignition.

“We all done things, chère.”

III. Now

You wish- hell, everyone does- there were ways to reset things. After a problem’s resolved, after apologies have been made and folks have been forgiven, you wish everyone involved could just erase it from their minds. Forget it. Move on.

Fact is, you won’t ever be able to forget what he said, to forget the acid in his tone, the look on his face. So move on then, you tell yourself. Live with it or get over it, just fucking _pick one_.

For once, _you_ call _him_. “Hello?”

“Hey,” you say, wishing it didn’t hurt somewhere in your chest to hear his voice, wishing you could separate missing him from being mad at him. “It’s me.”

“Rogue.” The past couple of times you’ve spoken on the phone, he’s been avoiding using your name. Maybe _he’s_ managing to forget it, move on, live. Maybe he can give you some pointers.

“Ah’m sorry,” you blurt out, and what the hell are you even apologizing for, and can the things you need to be forgiven for even be separated from things you want to forgive? “Ah’m sorry, Remy.”

You can hear his measured breaths. “Me too.” It’s all too much emotion, too many words already. For the rest of this conversation, you know neither of you is going to say anything you mean. You stay on the line anyway.

“How’re things at the school?” _I miss you_.

“Fine.” _Miss you, too._ “How’re things… wherever you are?”

“Kinda dusty. It ain’t the cleanest motel.” _God, I wish we could get past this. I wish I could go back in time. And I know you didn’t mean it, and I know you were angry and had every goddamn right to be, and I know you’re sorry, but I can’t get over it._

“S’about right, judgin’ by the rooms I been in.” _Please come home._

You stay on the phone with him a long time after both of you have stopped talking, just listening to him, him listening to you, all your unsaid words piling up.

IV. Then

It’s not until much later, when you’re winding the queen of hearts over and around your fingers, and trying not to think, that you know for certain you shoulda just let her storm out.

Her eyes are huge and trying their damnedest not to let loose the tears she’s holding back, and goddammit but you’re pretty sure you’ve forgotten what the two of you’re even fighting about this time. But you know you can’t let her go out that door, not again, not this soon.

“You runnin’ out again, Anna?” you call after her. “Learned that from Logan, neh?”

She looks like she might knock you out right there. “Fuck you.”

“Wish ya could.”

As soon as it’s out of your mouth you wish you’d never said it. You wish you’d never thought it. You wish, for a second, that you’d never ended up here and met her and loved her, all to avoid ever seeing the expression on her face. For a second. “No, that’s- that’s not what this is about. Anna—”

And then she’s grabbing you, jerky, forceful, and she kisses you like you’re caught in a hurricane. It’s vicious; it hurts. Every inch of you feels desiccated and dying and she’s not stopping, and you think for a second that she might actually kill you.

She backs away finally, looking disgusted, and she spits out, “There. That good for you, Remy?” She uses your own power, she hurls your own ashtray at you.

It misses you by inches.

She leaves.

V. Now

It starts with the phone ringing.

“Chère,” he says when you pick up, and your heart catches in your throat. “I’m outside.”


End file.
